SCMP Asian News

The world’s largest automated port, to be completed by 2040, will double the existing space and feature drones as well as driverless vehicles.

The creatures, including two armadillos, 35 turtles and 50 chameleons, were found in a pair of bags belonging to the two Indian women.

Canberra and Beijing have been at odds for two years, but a leadership change in Australia presents an opportunity for at least a ‘thawing’ of trade ties and diplomatic exchanges with China.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who wrapped up the last leg of her regional tour in Malaysia, said the new Labor government is ‘listening’ to the concerns of its neighbours.

Perceptions by Australians have not changed since 2021, with two-thirds of people surveyed in a Lowy Institute poll seeing China as a ‘security threat’.

At noon on Thursday, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr will take his presidential oath on the steps of the Philippines’ former legislature, where his late father-president was once confronted by student activists with a black paper-mache coffin and a crocodile. His inauguration as the nation’s 17th president will be “very solemn and simple”, event organisers said. “We will not stray from tradition,” Marcos Jnr said. Historian Ambeth Ocampo surmised that the venue – the National Museum of Fine Arts building which used to house the Philippine Congress until Marcos Snr shut it down in 1972 – was chosen for its “optics”. Its American colonial-style period columns mimic the backdrop for the inauguration of US presidents who take their oath on the steps of the Capitol. Whoever picked the venue did not know Philippine history, said Ocampo, a former head of the National Historical Commission, on Sunday. First, Ocampo said, all three presidents who took their oaths there – Manuel Quezon, Jose Laurel and Manuel Roxas – not only failed to finish their term, two of them – Quezon and Roxas – died while in office. Second, “that is where the First Quarter Storm began”, said Ocampo, referring to the series of increasingly violent student protests following the 1969 election, in which Marcos Snr was accused of having cheated to win a second term. What does a Marcos Jnr presidency mean for Asean and democracy in the region? Playwright Bonifacio Ilagan, 70, intends to spend inauguration day protesting Marcos Jnr’s assumption to the presidency, in the same way he protested against his father 52 years ago when Marcos Snr delivered his State of the Nation Address on January 26, 1970, in the same building. He said on Monday: “I don’t know if Marcos Jnr realises that the venue was a historic site for student unrest and radicalisation.” Ilagan, who was jailed and tortured during Marcos Snr’s dictatorship, is the convenor of The Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA). Authorities have branded Ilagan and his…

Divers are unhappy with a decision to ban swimming and diving around Hon Mun island, a popular spot off Nha Trang, while officials evaluate damage to the area’s coral reefs and associated ecosystem.

Anthony Albanese said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had brought democratic nations together and ‘shown attempts to impose change by force on a sovereign country meet resistance’.

Thailand’s tourism ministry voiced hopes that Chinese holidaymakers – who made up nearly 30 per cent of the country’s 40 million foreign tourists pre-pandemic – may return before the end of the year.

Canberra also plans to double funding for aerial surveillance in the Pacific region to recoup US$150 million lost each year to illegal fishing, a government minister said.

Prosecutors said the man committed his crimes over the span of 16 years, including from 2005 to 2018 when he worked as a part-time tutor to ‘gain access to a ready pool of children’ – many of whom were disabled.

A report by Indonesian NGOs on Malaysia’s allegedly gross mistreatment of immigration detainees found that some had died due to a lack of basic care.

South Korea joined the US-led Minerals Security Partnership earlier this month alongside the likes of Germany, France, Britain, Australia and Japan in a move designed to reduce its dependency on China for key resources, including rare earths.

Jokowi is likely to address immediate issues like food prices that could weigh on his legacy when he leaves office in 2024.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn urged military rulers not to hold deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has been put in solitary confinement, he says she plays a ‘critical role in your country’s return to normalcy’.

The financial hub loosened many pandemic-related rules, including scrapping testing for vaccinated travellers and gathering limits – now average daily infections have jumped to more than 5,500.

Ken Rhee was one of just 13 South Koreans to travel to Ukraine because Seoul banned its citizens from going to the war-ravaged country. He said it would have been a ‘crime’ not to help.

Japanese PM Fumio Kishida’s move comes apparently out of concern it would be viewed poorly by voters ahead of a local election.

Pyongyang also blamed US hostility for forcing North Korea to develop stronger defences, following recent joint exercises with South Korea and Japan.

The Japanese PM told G7 leaders that attempts to change the status quo by force were ‘continuing and increasing in the Indo-Pacific’, in an apparent reference to China.